Cinema #8, Death #1, Love #10

I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.

In a Lonely Place, d. Nicholas Ray (1950)

Diptych #3, Manhattan #11

The ordinary brown-stone front was thus a series of pretentious shams, and with these shams miles of the streets of New York were and are composed. To live in and among them, to become inured to them, was to suffer the deprivation of taste the more pitiable for being conscious. The brown-stone front was enough to vulgarize a whole population, and in our case it came near succeeding.

Montgomery Schyler, "The Small City House in New York" Architectural Record (1899)


The neighbourhood was thought remote, and the house was built in a ghastly greenish-yellow stone that the younger architects were beginning to employ as a protest against the brownstone of which the uniform hue coated New York like a cold chocolate sauce; but the plumbing was perfect.

Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence (1920)

The Age of Print #3

Manhattan #10, Lines Taken Out of Context #5

New York is gradually, year by year, becoming the home of the very rich and the very poor.

New York Herald (April 19, 1877)

Cinema #7, Architecture #8

Cinema Art Theater, Chicago, Illinois, Armstrong, Furst & Tilton Architects (1930)

Dead Presidents #5

They say it’s necessary in order to restore confidence and maintain morale. But … the troops will march in; the bands will play; the crowds will cheer; and in four days everyone will have forgotten. Then we will be told we have to send in more troops. It’s like taking a drink. The effect wears off, and you have to take another.

John F. Kennedy to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., shortly following General Maxwell Taylor's statement that there was "no limit to our possible commitment" in Southeast Asia after Kennedy November 1961's authorization of 7,000 U.S. troops as "base security" for South Vietnam.


(Schlesinger in bow tie in background in May 5, 1961 photograph)

Organizations #6

Ancient and Most Benevolent Order of the Friendly Brothers of St. Patrick in the Sixteenth Regiment of Foot

(Founded 1767)

America #12

Nebraska (1886)

Word of the Day #19

Ferrovitreous

Scenes from a Life #5, Cinema #6

Josef von Sternberg, Marlene Dietrich on the set of Dishonored (1931)

America #11, White Man's Burden #4, Cinema #5

What is this famous civilisation of the white man which Hollywood reveals?

Aldous Huxley, Jesting Pilate: Diary of a Journey (1926)

Organizations #5

American Boys Club for the Defense of Errol Flynn (ABCDEF)

(Founded 1942)

Word of the Day #18

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